“IT is vitally important in the construction sector that we nurture young talent and work towards filling the industry’s skills needs of the future.”

Only a fool would disagree with that sentiment.

It was the message that a group of North-East construction students heard last week during a guided tour around a site hosted by housebuilder Southdale.

A few hours later, the company went bust.

Welcome to the building trade.

Few industries are as exposed to the impact of recession, and the precarious path to recovery, as construction. Read today’s feature on page 32 with civil engineering veteran Douglas Kell and you soon realise that it has long been a rewarding but an incredibly challenging industry. In short, running a successful building business – especially a small, local firm - is about as tough a job as you will get.

Barely a week goes by without a business leader or politician bemoaning the skills gap in engineering, manufacturing and construction, and calling for more young people to be trained in practical skills.

Last week, in a scene straight out of Nigel Farage’s worst nightmares, we reported that workers from abroad were being flown over from the Continent to ensure North-East building sites had sufficient bricklayers and carpenters. Mr Farage would no doubt say that we should have enough of our own skilled workers to cope with rising demand for new houses. In an ideal world I would agree with him. But the boom and bust nature of construction makes it almost impossible to have enough home grown workers on hand to react to economic recovery unless you are prepared to face the prospect of laying-off thousands when the inevitable downturn arrives.

The immediate impact of Southdale’s collapse was the loss of about 30 jobs at its Newton Aycliffe offices. The wider repercussions to the supply chain, and some of the region’s biggest housing projects, highlights the fragile state of the economic recovery. It also exposes the dilemma facing young people who might be considering a career in construction. It will never be the safest of paths, but changes can be made – such as support for smaller local builders by giving them a fairer crack at local authority contracts, and greater diligence from public sector buyers to investigate payment history – that could bring greater stability to the sector.

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